Sunday, January 18, 2015

FOX TURNS A TAX CUT INTO A TAX HIKE

President Obama will use his State of the Union address to call on Congress to raise taxes and fees on the wealthiest taxpayers and the largest financial firms to finance an array of tax cuts for the middle class....

That's right: according to this headline, Obama wants to raise your taxes, Fox Nation reader, because he thinks you aren't paying your "fair share." You. Not the rich.

I don't know what the demographics of the typical Fox Nation reader is, but according to Pew, the regular Fox News audience has far fewer high earners than most other major media outlets:

That may be because so many Fox viewers are retirees and therefore don't have much annual income anymore. Or maybe Fox viewers don't trust the pinkos at the Pew Center with anonymous income information.

Tea party members, as we know, are somewhat wealthier than the general public, though the stats suggest that they're middle-class, not really rich. Presumably, that's the Fox demographic as well. They're not the 1%. But the Fox headline is intended to make them think that President Obama wants to tax them like the 1%. And even though the text under the headline explains otherwise, I'm betting they believe the headline.